The Person (I should have been)
by Fish Wishes
Summary: Down on the ground, the 100 are their own worst enemy. But it seems as if they keep forgetting that. (Diverges after "Day Trip")
1. Chapter One

**Summary**: Down on the ground, the 100 are their own worst enemy. But it seems as if they keep forgetting it. (Diverges after "Day Trip")

**Trigger warning**: This story deals with mature themes such as aggressive violence, sexual assault, and rape.

**Blanket Disclaimer**: I don't own it and I make no profit.

* * *

**The Person (I should have been)  
Chapter One**  
"But she's wrong about hell. You don't have to wait until you're dead to get there."  
Susan Beth Pfeffer, _Life As We Knew It_

* * *

The fog enveloping the camp creates blue shadows out of the tents and muffles laughter to whispers carried by water droplets. People cluster around flickering fires and none of the guards carry guns today—not when it would be too easy to mistake a friend for foe, or a tree for the matter. Clarke stands by Donna, a girl of fourteen who was arrested for illegal trading. Her sobs are punctuated by gasps for air and whimpers, but the cold interior of the drop ship echoes her despair. Clarke focuses on the blue veins beneath the girl's white skin. Donna sits on the slab of metal where Finn lay dying a week ago. Her skinny legs dangle over the edge and her red hair braided to the side.

Clarke thinks Octavia would know how to comfort this child. How to wrap her in a hug or murmur comforting words, but not Clarke. She could only rest her hand on Donna's knee and bow her head, allowing the once-smuggler to weep in the only place one could find privacy in a world of cloth walls.

Someone enters the drop ship, but apologizes and backs out before Clarke can tell them to leave. It takes a few more sniffles and choking sobs before Donna is calm enough to drink the water offered.

"Have you noticed any other changes?" Clarke prompts. "Although you've missed your period, there are other explanations. Maybe not getting the proper nutrients or being under a lot of stress can cause a woman to skip a month."

Donna's eyes look down at the muddy floor. Clarke wonders if maybe she should try to keep the drop ship cleaner, but with dozens of people going through each day, it seems ridiculous to try. Donna hunches over and mumbles something. Frowning, Clarke has her repeat it.

"My breasts have been really sore. I mean, I know they ain't much, but they hurt. Same with my back." Donna blushes.

Clarke nods, unperturbed. "Okay, anything else?"

"Just been tired a lot, is all."

The caress of rain fills the drop ship. It sounds like two hands rubbing together to keep warm. Clarke looks towards the plastic covering the door. No-one has come in yet, and she doubts their privacy will last much longer.

"Hey, why don't we go up to the top. No one will bother us there, okay?" she says. Donna nods and slips off the table. She is knobby knees and long arms and too young—like Charlotte or any of the 100. "I'll meet you up there; don't touch the guns, okay?" Clarke says. She watches the girl climb up the first few rungs of the ladder before turning to find Bellamy.

He's waiting right outside the drop ship, water clinging to his eye lashes and his hair frizzing out from the humidity. His arms are crossed and he stares down a collection of people, keeping them from entering. A few stare back, but most just shuffle closer to another or go find a tent with waterproof material to share. Bellamy sees Clarke and steps to the side.

"Alright, go ahead," he says to the crowd. They grumble and retreat inside the drop ship, but no one challenges him. The fog has lightened enough that standing at the entrance Clarke can see the expanse of camp. The wall juts up at irregular areas from poor design. She doesn't say anything to Bellamy as people trickle in. One person stops to ask if she could check on them later because he has been feeling dizzy. She smiles and nods and gets the guy to leave.

"We have a problem," Clarke says, pulling her hair off her neck and twisting it into a bun.

"You're gunna have to be more specific than that," Bellamy scoffs and kicks the ground.

She rubs at her eyes and whispers, "That girl I was seeing, she might be pregnant and—"

"So?" He stands facing her. His shoulders tense up and he lowers his head, looking prepared to charge. "That's a good _thing, _princess."

Clarke doesn't—can't—speak. The rain becomes mist. Her hair tickles the inside of her ear. His eyes look like the earth dug up, exposed and angry. "For real, Bellamy?" She huffs and steps closer. Octavia's laughter ripples through the camp. He is not twenty-one anymore with a mop as his daily companion because his mother was floated and his sister was arrested. He is not on the Ark where being second born is a crime. And Clarke isn't the counsel, here to pass judgment on a desperate mother. (That last one is the easiest to believe.)

"It's not that she might be pregnant that's the problem. It's _how_ she got pregnant." She pushes Bellamy farther away from the entrance of the drop ship.

He yields, but teases, "Don't tell me you still think the stork delivers the baby."

"No, but there's a consensual and non-consensual way of getting pregnant."

Bellamy grasps Clarke's wrist, pressing her father's watch into her skin. "Are you sure?" The muscle between his thumb and index finger bulges. _Thenar_. The name of the muscle group comes unbidden to her mind.

"Do you know who the real criminals are here. The dangerous ones?" she asks instead.

He shakes his head and lets go. "Some I do know from being a cadet, but after I got demoted…I didn't have access to that type of information." He presses his knuckles onto the side of the drop ship. Skin against steel. The rain coalesces into fat droplets.

"Okay." Clarke's eyes drift to the tents. Some had lights, casting shadows of the occupants on the walls. Others were black, sleeping masses.

"I'll start with Murphy's old crew," Bellamy says, his voice rising out of the murky twilight like the howling of an owl.

"Let me know when you do." Clarke thinks about the grounder they tortured and knows they won't repeat the same mistake. Then, she thinks about Wells and how willing he was to help people who hated him. Charlotte and how she just wanted to hold Clarke's hand. She thinks about Murphy's sneer and grinds her teeth. "We do this together."

"Together," Bellamy agrees. It is no longer raining.

* * *

Clarke rips off the head set and throws it on the table. She squeezes her hands together and swallows all the bitter, hard words she choked on during her discussion about herbal birth control with her mother. She wanted to talk to Jackson, her mother's assistant. He would have sputtered and blushed and pushed around papers, but Clarke would have sat there, a tight smile on her lips as she waited for him to collect himself. But no, she got her mother:

"Dr. Griffin, can you please send information on herbal contraceptives."

"Clarke, have you—are you—I'm here if you need to talk—"

"Dr. Griffin, _several_ couples are interested in copulating, but understand the ramifications of such actions without proper planning."

"Oh, right, but…are you? I mean, we never really got around to talking about it, but we can now if—"

"Mom, can you tell me what I need to know or not?"

"Um, yes, give me a moment…are you sure you don't want to talk about this?"

"Mom."

From there, it was more professional and didn't broach upon the subject of Clarke's sex life. At the end of the call, the screen froze, showing Clarke a still of her mother. High cheek bones; thin lips; bags under her eyes. And then she remembers her father saying once, "You look like her." Clarke hangs up before any fumbling attempts at saying goodbye could happen.

Static flickers across the empty screen. Watching the erratic spasms of radio waves settles Clarke's anger. She brushes quivering tears from her eyelashes and steps out from the curtain separating the radio from the rest of the drop ship. It provides the illusion of privacy for when someone wants to talk to their parents, but for Clarke it sometimes seems as if all privacy is an illusion here at camp. _And yet, I had no idea a girl was being sexually abused,_ she thinks.

A brisk wind wove through camp, fluttering tent flaps and fallen leaves alike. Some parts of the forest were still green, but she suspected that those would _never_ changed. Other parts flooded the tree tops with red and orange and gold. Sometimes a blush of pink. Between pages of her notebooks and journals, she would stash away her favorite leaves, hoping to preserve them for a time where she might try to mimic their colors and curves and veins.

She finds Jasper and Monty with others who are familiar with horticulture sorting through nuts, berries, and plants. They make sure nothing toxic slips into their food supplies again (they were lucky the nuts only cause hallucinations). She steps between them.

"I need your help with something," she says, peeling away brown casings at the base of the some pine needles.

"Shoot." Monty grins.

"Are you familiar with either lithosperumum or arisaema triphyllum?" Clarke stops to zip her jacket up. (Autumn or fall, it didn't matter what you called it because it's still the season before ice and snow and frostbite. _Winter is coming, _she and Bellamy keep saying whenever they go through their meager supplies.)

"Yeah," Jasper begins; he faces her. "I thought you and Finn weren't rolling together, anymore."

She scoffs and throws a pine cone at him. "Why does everyone think it's for me?" She settles back down. "So you know what it is and what it's for, then?"

Monty nods. "Yeah, we used to grow it along with cannabis for kids who couldn't get birth control."

"I thought it was automatically added into our meal pills," Clarke says. She rubs away some sap on her fingers.

"Well, maybe in your sector of the Ark, but not in others. Sex was a luxury," Jasper sighs and then blushes, hair falling across his eyes. "I mean," he stutters and shuffles broken nut shells around the table. "Adding birth control to pills was expensive. It took up limited resources that ended up going to a limiter and more privileged sector of the Ark. Just another class division." He readjusts his goggles and continues, "But we don't have to worry about that type of stuff here."

Clarke scoffs, "I don't think we can stop worrying about it."

"Sex?" Monty leans against the table, rolling a small blueberry in his palm.

"Class divisions?" Jasper adds.

"Babies," she clarifies, a weak smile on her face.

"Oh, yeah," the guys acknowledge, their facial expression mirroring each others.

"Well, it shouldn't be a big deal. They're pretty common plants anyways." Monty throws the berry in the air and catches it in his mouth. His teeth have blue splotches on them the next time he smiles. "You're sure gunna boost your approval ratings with this idea!"

Jasper looks at Clarke's hands. They shake. "What else do you need us to look for?" Jasper asks. He knows the twitches of anxiety.

She looks up from her work and down at the rest of the table. Jordan laughs at something Evy said. They are the youngest here, both twelve and accomplices in crime. They smuggled moonshine until one day they refused to deliver to a man on Phoenix who kept skipping payment—that was their crime, crossing the wrong person who had the right amount of pull. "Daucus carota or Polygonum. There were others, but I don't think they're native to the area we've landed in," she says.

"Queen Anne's Lace?" Monty leans into Clarke's line of sight. "Yeah, we know that one pretty well, too. Most awkward conversation I ever had with my mom," he says, trying to lighten the mood. He avoids serious like he avoids grounders.

"You want us to keep it on the DL?" Jasper asks, he focuses back on the nuts.

"Gather a much Lithosperumum and Arisaema triphyllum as you can so that at least each girl has a week's supply of it, if they want it," Clarke says.

"And the Queen Anne's Lace?"

She sighs, she rubs a pine needle between her fingers. If she ever had to explain to someone what life smelled like, she would say it smelled like pine needles and evergreens. "Enough for one person, but try to be discrete about it, will you? I don't want people just taking it without my supervision, just in case complications arise."

Monty says, "You're the doctor—and a woman. We trust you." Jasper nods in agreement, his lopsided, twitching grin filling with face. "Let us know if we can help with anything else."

She grabs a handful of pine needles to put in her pillow tonight because she needs to remember what life smells like. "Thanks, guys," she says and goes back to the drop ship to eat lunch with Bellamy and to work with Octavia on the census they starting working on since Donna came to Clarke yesterday.

* * *

They split a pawpaw between them. Bellamy slices it with his hatchet, juice dribbling down the blade. Octavia takes her time picking out the slick, brown seeds. When Monroe and her scouts first found the cluster of pawpaw trees, large red flowers blooming and the fetid smell of rotting meat, she averted the area thinking it was some grounder kill zone. It wasn't until Richard, a guy who hacked his way onto the Ark point system instead of studying his agriculture books, overheard Monroe talking about it almost a week later and realized what she found. Clarke uses her teeth to pull the meat away from the browning skin. They eat with their eyes down, savoring the sweetness as much as the silence. Boxes of ammunition garnered from the bunker fill most of the top floor of the drop ship now. And out of the twenty-guns stored in oil, only four are checked out. Those on guard rotation signed their names on the wall of the drop ship with charcoal from the fire.

Octavia wipes her fingers on her pants and passes a sheet of paper to Clarke. There is 102 names. Fourteen are crossed off. The two newest graves were from this past week. Thomas fell into a grounder pit, impaled in one too many places for saving. Bellamy climbed down into the trap and held the boys hand as fluid filled his lungs and he choked on his blood. Jose broke his wrist slipping on rocks after the first frost. He staggered back to camp, his ulnar bone poking out. She took Bellamy's ax, cut it off, and cauterized it. Jose died with Clarke's fingers pressed against his neck, feeling his pulse fade.

"Who'd you have write it?" Bellamy asks, gesturing to the paper.

Octavia doesn't look up from her slice of fruit. "Philip. He's the kid that tried to steal the Tree on the Ark."

Clarke pauses. "Why didn't you write it?" The letters are neat and it's pen so it won't smudge like a pencil.

"I don't know how to. I didn't go to classes. Remember? Lived under the floorboards. Arrested for being born."

Bellamy rips the skin of the pawpaw into a pile at his feet. He sits on one of chairs, forearms pressing into his knees, head bowed.

Clarke clears her throat and looks back at the list. Her eyes ache so asks instead, "Anyone suspicious?"

"We need to watch out for Harry, Fran, Lucus, and Erin. They were the ones who backed Murphy up. They were arrested for violent crimes. I know Quinn tends to be a bit more handsy than a lot of the other girl's appreciate," Bellamy says. He rubs at the stubble along his jaw. He tries to shave as often as possible because his beard comes in patchy, if at all. That's what he told Clarke when found him scratching a knife along his neck. (She thought he was finishing what Dax set out to do, but didn't need to tell him because he saw it in the way she didn't look away from the knife until he was done shaving.)

"Quinn is just a flirt," Octavia defends, leaning back on the carpet of panther fur. Her hair blends into the shimmering black. Clarke can tell where the bullets Wells fired to kill the animal singed through.

Bellamy scoffs, his mouth twists into a sneer. Teeth barred and ready fight, but Clarke interrupts, "Thanks for this, Octavia. It'll be really helpful to make sure people are working in areas they're most suited for." She isn't looking at the list though; she stares at Bellamy. He stares back.

Octavia mumbles, "Whatever," and leaves after seconds of silence. The hatch slams down the same moment Bellamy flips the chair he was sitting on. He paces a few times before settling and facing the wall with the names of the guards with guns. One of the names on the list is Erin, one of Murphy's _buddies_. Clarke watches his back expands because he loves his sister too much to let it all out so he sucks it all instead. She stands to ease the ax away from his stiff hands. He complies, but doesn't turn around. Clarke grips the ax in her hands. It is cold and deadly. It embodies everything he and she strive to be here on Earth. (But neither of them are cold. They feel too much to be. Passion and drive is all they have to get them through the nightmares and up the next morning.)

"Quinn was arrested for raping a girl." His voice rasps like a handsaw going through wood. "And she thinks he's just a _flirt_."

She presses her hand into the space between his shoulder blades, his heart beats powerful enough to travel to her finger tips. "She wouldn't be the first girl to read a guy wrong." She feels his shuddering breaths and smells the stench of too many days without a bath. Chemically, sweat and tears are composed of different molecules, but their production can be due to the same stimulant. Clarke closes her eyes and sees Charlotte standing at the cliffs edge. _She only wanted to hold my hand._

* * *

**Author: ** Just to clarify, the events that have happened in "Unity Day" have not occurred, I have my own plans for grounder interaction ;)  
Yes, this is a Bellarke, but more of a slow burn. (But that's how we like it isn't it?)  
Thank you for reading and I would loveee to know what ya'll think!


	2. Chapter Two

******Trigger warning**: This story deals with mature themes such as aggressive violence, sexual assault, and rape.

* * *

**The Person (I should have been)  
Chapter Two**

"Maybe there is a beast...maybe it's only us."  
William Golding, _Lord of the Flies_

* * *

Bellamy jogs through the forest with dawn breaching through the trees. He skips over roots and rocks and all the anxieties of the camp. Each exhale sounds like the name of a dead teenager. (_Owen. Fenton. Tina. Pascal. Atom. Wells. Charlotte. John. Deeks. Roma. Dax. Thomas. Jose.) _He breathes in the living. (_Phillip. Miller. Monroe. Finn. Jasper. Monty. Evy. Tristan. Ron. Raven. Nori.)_ If he trips, he curses _Murphy_. Every flutter of songbird wings he thinks _Octavia_. And when he pauses to sip some water, he looks up and sees a red-tail hawk. Its feathers puff around it to insulate its body against the morning chill. Bellamy's pants are wet from the dew. If he doesn't get moving again, he will get cold. He can't look away from the raptor until it fans out its wings and swoops into the rising sun, its belly white and spotted. When he's running again, the hawk's shrill call breaks the sleepy coos of morning doves. He stops, looks up. In that ten seconds, every breath is _Clarke._

The deer trail breaks into a cut of younger trees, spaced out from each other and with plenty of smaller bushes and grass. Turkeys strut through the low brush, picking at the berries. When he first found them a week ago, he thought about killing them, but then he crushed a batch of eggs under his boots and realized capture was more sustainable. When Clarke and he talked about camp matters, he weaved ruined cloth together to create a net. She hated it when someone didn't look at her when talking, so he wasn't surprised when she snapped to know what was more important than making building plans to replace the tents they used now.

He smiled and said, "Now you wouldn't want to ruin the surprise, now would you, princess?" Clarke huffed and left to collect the few engineers and manual laborers to present them her sketches.

The tom, the male turkey, was spectacular with his ruffled breast and red-blue mask of wrinkled skin. The five females blend into moist ground. Bellamy circles around, rustling bushes and throwing rocks to herd the birds into a smaller group. It works. He then steers them south where he found a house foundation. It would become his trap. Pulling on the net, he readjusts his grip. The bottom is weighted down, but it doesn't guarantee that it will fan out the way it needs to. He creeps towards the birds. _One shot_. Its when the male looks up, its black eye locked on his, that Bellamy moves.

* * *

"Can you talk to her?" Clarke asks. "You're the only one who knows what its like to raise a baby."

They stand shoulder to shoulder, looking down at the collection of people cooing over the turkeys. Bellamy was only able to capture two of the females, but it was their eggs that matter. Until a more sturdy pen can be constructed, they were being kept under Bellamy's net. Clarke already saw to the scratches on his leg when the tom charged him. It wasn't deep, but he would need to stitch his pants. After eating his dinner of roasted turkey meat, it will not take long.

"What? Can't you appreciate your surprise for a little?" he says, gesturing the the clucking hens.

Clarke grins, half of her face lifting more than the other. It's her amused-smile. Not her happy-smile. She teases, "Yes, thank you, oh warrior-Bellamy."

"It was my honor, brave-princess." They share a laugh. Despite the cold morning, with the sun at its zenith, it was hot. Everyone stashed their jackets and walked about in t-shirts stained with sweat and dirt. Octavia slips forward in the crowd until she's right next to the turkeys. She tosses something at the animals. They tilt their heads left and right and left again before pecking at the ground. The crowd shifts as people get bored and leave or try to get a better view of the bulky birds. Not everyone is an enchanted with the forest as he is. For many, this might be their first up-close encounter with a live animal. He names as many faces as he can. (_Miller. Sean. Don. Rachel. Phillip._)

Clarke says what he's also thinking as he scans each person, "Which one raped Donna? Who else is a problem?" She shakes her head and turns her back on the crowd. "How well do we really know these people?"

Bellamy crosses his arms and looks back at her. Her blonde hair is knotted and her lips are chapped. He sniffs the air between them. "Why does your breathe smell like moonshine?"

Her eyes flick away and she shuffles her feet. She does that when embarrassed. "I use it to rinse my mouth. Makes it feel less…fuzzy_._"

"Oh, right. Next time I see Sheppard sneaking off with the moonshine for medical use, I'll be sure to consider _that's_ what he's doing."

She snorts and swipes away the sweat on her forehead. "None of us know what to use to keep our teeth clean. Monty's guesses are only going to get us so far."

"There's a lot of things we don't know," Bellamy clarifies. "But that doesn't mean we're going to stop trying to figure this shit out."

She taps her foot. "How many are going to die before we get it right, though?" Her eyes are blue and bright and harsh. Bellamy doesn't look away until she does.

He shouts for people to get moving again, that a turkey needs plucked, houses built, and a wall guarded. Some listen, some don't. Monroe hustles the few who don't. Bellamy repeats their names to himself, _Xavier. Fran. Trevor._

"Bellamy, will you talk with Donna?" Clarke continues, stepping into his line of vision.

He thinks of the harsh, white lights of the Ark and how he couldn't wash Octavia for two days after she was born because Thursdays, not Tuesdays, is when they had 20 minutes of water use. "You want me to convince her out of it? Tell her having a baby is a bad idea?" He's not really sure if he's asking her or not.

"I want to give her all the information I can. That's what I want to do." Bellamy is the first one to look away this time.

He waves over Nori, a chubby guy with an easy smile and a wheezing laugh. He is their most educated architectural engineer and Bellamy assigns him to lash together a cage for the birds before going back to working on houses. Clarke thanks Nori. When he smiles, the whites of his teeth and eyes are startling against his dark skin. (Bellamy isn't sure why he was arrested, and it's that lack of knowledge makes him more uncomfortable than having to sit in a meeting with Clarke, Raven, and Finn cramped into the upper level of the drop ship.)

"Is she going to be comfortable talking to me? I'm a guy after all," Bellamy says once Nori jogs off, holding up his loose pants.

"I'll sit there with her, as reassurance. We do this together, remember?"

He smirks, tasting the moonshine on her breath again. "What are you waiting for, then, princess?"

* * *

Jasper meets them half way to Donna's tent. His goggles swinging from his neck and his eyes so bloodshot Bellamy thinks he's high. He is gasping out things that Bellamy can't imagine to be actual words, but Clarke understands the half-formed sentences and the desperate twitch of his arm. She runs towards Donna's tent and Bellamy does too because if she's running, than that's all the reason he needs to run too. The light in the tent is orange and disorienting. He reaches to lead Clarke out because Donna is just sleeping, her back to them, and Jasper is obviously high and they have other things to work on. But before his finger tips brush the stiff material of her jacket, she's crouching by Donna and pulling on her shoulder. But the body is too stiff and there is no groaning as the teenager is roused from her nap. (_Donna's talk won't happen. Never. _This he knows even before Clarke shakes her head after trying to find a pulse.)

Bellamy wonders over purple bruises along her neck and collar bone for ten seconds. Allows him a moment of shock that another human being did this. When Donna's shirt falls open because it's ripped, he focuses on the back of Clarke's head. Then, he smells the blood. It's like when he killed Dax: no semblance of power or strength. Just unstable feet and lapse of rational thought. Because there was life and now there isn't.

Clarke pulls a blanket over the body. _Donna's body_, he reminds himself. He needs to remember she was once alive and he was about to give her parenting advice. He was going to tell her about how baby's only sleep for two or three hours at a time those first few weeks and that they're _always _hungry. He wanted to tell her about the crying he still has nightmares about because even if you're right next to them, your heart still races like you ran to their side. Then he would talk about the smiles and the smells and the first time Octavia got sick—

"Bellamy, do you trust Monroe?" she asks.

He's nodding and says, "Yeah."

"I could use her help."

"What? Why?" The blanket slips and the bruises are there again. _Do they get darker the longer someone's dead?_

"I need to get her ready for the pyre and I don't think…I don't think she would want a man handling her."

"Okay," he says, he runs a hand through his hair, grease slick between his fingers. "Okay."

When Bellamy leaves, he slams into Jasper. The boy grapples with the lapels on his jacket, every hallow of his face is full of panic. "Was it a grounder?" he asks.

"No." Bellamy says. And it isn't until he sees the colors of trees and hears the crackle of fires, that he grasps that truth. "No, it wasn't a grounder."

He starts to walk away, but then turns back to Jasper. His back is curved forward and he stares into the shadows of the tent, mouth open. "Start collecting the wood, will you? Get a lot of people to help, but don't say anything aside the fact it's for a pyre, got it?" He repeats it because Jasper doesn't understand the first time around. Jogging away, Bellamy's face sharpens as he calculates the reaction the 100 might have. If he is not careful—well, history has a tendency to repeat itself. _Murphy and Charlotte and Wells_. He breathes in their names.

He finds Monroe working on the wall, her muscles clenching as she hefts up a tree limb so a thin boy can wedge it into place. He stops her before she can pick up another one. "Clarke needs your help."

Maybe it's the way he doesn't look her in the eyes or how he says Clarke's name, but she grabs her jacket and spear and follows him in silence. People still laugh and smile as they make their way back towards Donna's tent on the east side of camp. Bellamy unconsciously looks for Octavia. He wants to see how the scabs on her face are healing. He wants to see the sarcastic twitch of her eyebrow. He wants to argue with her just to know she has air in her lungs and is alive. He could stop. He could leave Monroe and Clarke and Donna's body to go find Octavia, but he doesn't because it's not her that needs him now.

* * *

No-one noticed the graves were disturbed until the first leaves began to change. They thought it was wild animal digging up the bodies, trying to get at the meat. That's why they started burning the bodies instead of burying them. As fire blackens Donna's body, a fouler reason comes to Bellamy's mind: grave robbers. _All the bodies buried were fully clothed and had good boots._ He covers his mouth with his sleeve. Even though everyone gathered stands down wind, the smell still causes a few to gag. Neither Clarke or he said anything. They let others do that for them. _Let them stew. Let them get nervous_, he thinks, glancing through the crowd. _Let cold truth that one of our own did this,_ again_, settle in. _The blade on his ax is dull, but it can still kill. He traces the edge of it with his finger as whispers wash over him like the heat of the pyre.

"What happened?"

"How'd she die?"

"Shit, did you see all the bruises on her?"

"Why hasn't Bellamy and Clarke said anything?"

"Grounders?"

"Jasper said it wasn't them."

"So who killed her then if it wasn't the grounders?"

The fire's glow matches the color of the fading sun and he feels hot, hot, hot, all over. He grips his ax, knowing the weight and balance like he knows the glint of Octavia's hair. _Come on,_ he thinks. _We know you're here and we will find you and we will k—_And then he hears it. The humming. The song of Atom's death. The song of Clarke's mercy and strength and comfort and love. He reaches for something to steady him, to remind him this is here and now. It's Miller's shoulder that gives Bellamy a reason to speak, a reason to cut through the humming and break it into insignificant sounds like the crackling of pine needles as they burn.

"Assign Richard to watch over the pyre, will ya? I don't want the wind catching it and burning us all with it," he commands. Stepping back and away. Distancing himself. Covering up his weakness with strength and in twilight's shadows.

"I'll do it."

Bellamy frowns. He didn't notice the tears before, but he saw them now. "Was she…something to you?" he asks. He needs to show support, to be there for the few people he trusts. He has to make sure he can give them reasons to follow him, to listen to him.

Miller snorts down the snot and tears. He spits it all on the ground. "Yeah. Neighbors on the Ark. God, she sucked in Earth skills. All of it." He chuckles, but it catches and the tears are forcing their way back up. "But people have a way of working themselves into you and you find that you don't wanna let them go either." Bellamy doesn't say anything; Miller isn't speaking for his benefit. This is Donna's eulogy. "Soon we were stupid kids in love and doing stupid shit. Ya know she got arrested on purpose? God, it took three days and then I see her getting dragged in to confinement by guards. Said she didn't want to be anywhere that I wasn't." Bellamy flinches when Miller grabs onto his jacket, pulling at the sleeve. "It was suppose to be _different_ here, man, _different. _I was gunna make her happy, and she was gunna make me happy, dammit. But after Murphy, I don't know, she just stopped, dude. Why? What did I do?" And he starts crying like he's screaming.

* * *

Once Bellamy is away from the fire, from Charlotte's empty grave, and getting ready to go to bed does the humming come back to him. Not because he hears it, but because he remembers the brush of Clarke's hand as she takes the knife away from him and how she combed back Atom's hair before sliding metal into blistering skin. As he moves between shadows of tents, he tugs his zipper up. Leaves shuffle as the wind picks up, moving together like one dark mass rising up to swallow him. He kicks it down and marches on.

The translucent tarp covering the entrance of the drop ship looms ahead of him. Inside the steel gleams from the yellow light-bulbs and someone is talking in a low voice to their parent on the radio, static interrupting their conversation. Clarke leans over the her table, for it is _hers_. She has saved and lost lives on it. (She will save lives and lose lives on it, too.) She'll eat her meals as she sees patients on it, pecking at the food between cuts and burns. She organizes supplies here, sorting out a few leaves careless hands let slip through during the initial look through by gatherers. And she sleeps here, in case someone needs to find her. Bellamy teases her it's because she's too lazy to get her own tent (but he knows it's because at the end of the day, she's ready to fall asleep on her feet and the idea of walking any farther than necessary seems ridiculous).

She's standing, sketching a few things out in the journal they confiscated from the grounder. Her hair matches the color of the light and her shoulders slope down. She tells him she recognizes the sound of his footsteps, so he steps closer and waits for her to acknowledge him.

"What, Bellamy?" she sighs, not looking up. The pencil moves in short, fast strokes; the sound rises above the radio static and the crickets outside. It reminds him of the sewing machine his mother used to own. The needle bobbing in and out of tattered fabric.

"You got a sec?" He signals with his head towards outside.

She sets aside her work and follows him. She holds back to ask again what he wants until they're out of the circle of light overflowing from the drop ship's door. Her hands in her pockets, she yawns and then shivers. She mumbles something about winter, waiting for his answer.

"Clarke." He swallows, but he can't keep the words down. He has to ask. "Clarke, did you do it? Did you kill, Donna?" Her eyes are wide and he swears he can see the summer sky in them. He doesn't see the punch coming because she doesn't move her hips. ("That's where all the power comes from," his drill sergeant said in cadet training.)

"You _fucking _asshole." He can't see her with his head snapped to the side, his jaw throbbing.

She's gone when he looks up. Only clouds of his breath fill the space where she stood.

* * *

**Author: **Thank you**.**For your reviews and follows and favorites. Each one filled my e-mail and my heart. Thank you. **  
**

This chapter broke my heart to write, for many reasons, but I hope, despite the pain, you'll find love in it. (Or at least hope for love because there will be another chapter.)  
I will be working with the concept of Unity Day and grounder interaction in the next chapter, followed by some other events...I hope everyone is enjoying/enjoyed today's new episode, too! :)


	3. Chapter Three

******Trigger warning**: This story deals with mature themes such as aggressive violence, sexual assault, and rape.

* * *

**The Person (I should have been)  
Chapter Three**

"It's hard to wake from a nightmare when the nightmare is real."  
Kristin Cashore,_ Fire_

* * *

Octavia and Bellamy yell at each other in front of the hundred, like an old drama replayed on the Ark. The morning sun spotlights their argument. Clarke stands with the rest of the crowd, positioning herself so she can watch as Octavia's nose wrinkles and her lips rise, barring her teeth. Everyone thinks she doesn't listen to him because they are siblings. She turns her nose up at his authority and walks into the forest when she wants because that's what brothers and sisters do, right? Clarke feels the press of the journal in the back pocket of her pants and knows what lengths people will go to for the one's they love. Bellamy knows this, too. Maybe it's not the grounder that scares him, but the love Octavia shows for the enemy. It terrifies him so much that he's willing to humiliate himself in front of the hundred.

"Who are you to question me, Bellamy? You think you're so great and so immune—"

"I'm your brother, dammit! Why can't you just let me do my job?"

"Because I'm not a _job,_" she spits and shoves him.

The muscles on the back of his neck coil, but Bellamy absorbs his sister's curses and hate. Clarke knows because of how his back slouches like he's taking a hit to the gut and is trying to minimize the blow. She wonders if it works. She hears the whispers of betting behind her. It's Ulric and Lucus with their matted hair and guns cradled in their arms.

Lucus grins at her when she looks back and sneers, "You want to put into the pot, princess?" He's chewing something that turns his teeth red.

Looking at Ulric reminds Clarke of seeing a grounder with their face masks, so she keeps her eye on his finger hovering above the trigger.

"You like to gamble, don't you?" Lucus gestures at her with his weapon. Clarke moves her body away from the barrel, not about to trust a 97 year old gun and the sixteen year old gripping it. "You're the only one here who knows how to patch us up. You get to bet on our lives. Every damn day. How 'bout we turn the tables and bet on your li—Bellamy."

She keeps her shoulders straight and feet grounded. In two days, she has not spoken nor seen his face. She's not about to break her record. But she doesn't have to _see_ him to know he stands right behind her, the toe of his boot nudged against the back of her right foot.

"Don't you two have rounds to be doing." A command. Not a question.

Ulric nods and Lucus smiles—but maybe it's a snarl.

Clarke watches them as they move out of sight, feet cracking on the frosted ground. Bellamy's pressure lessens and she takes a step forward, making the space between them large and awkward. She keeps half-turned and never looking into his face, "When I asked Raven, she said Lucus was arrested for his work with Nigel. She oversee—"

"I know who Nigel is."

She wonders if she could throw a good punch with her left hand, she walks away.

"Ya, happy Unity Day to you too, princess," he yells, his voice as powerful as gunfire.

She sees Finn, turns around, and calls out to Bellamy. He looks back, gun slung over his shoulder and his ears, nose, and cheeks pink from the cold (last night he had a hat; this morning a fourteen year old by the name of Marshal is wearing it). She shouldn't expect him to come back to her, but she does. So they stand on their toes, waiting for the other to step forward first—to be the first one to break. He fixed his pant leg with quick, wide stitches from when the male turkey charged him. She wonders if, like her, he's unraveling the sleeves of his shirt to make up for the lack of string. (_It's the little things_, she thinks. _Like string and shoelaces and hair ties and contraceptives._)

They move forward together and neither look in each others' eyes: he, surveying the camp, and she, glancing over the wall. She crosses her arms, hiding her bruised knuckles that match his bruised jaw.

"I wanted to let you know," she begins. "That I forgive you." His eyes slid over and away from her. She feels it like winter in the morning making her stiff and reluctant to move. "You're an ass, like always, but I forgive you because you were just looking out for your sister, for yourself, for us all. You were just doing what needed to be done."

His chin is tilted away and his nose hangs high in the air, but his eyes are on her. She stares back, sometimes drifting to the scars of Dax's attack, but never to the bruise she left. Her jaw pops as she says, "What I did to Atom—he would have died as we brought him back to camp. It would have been cruel." (She's also saying it was a kindness, what she did, and he knows that so why bother saying it?) "Donna and her baby had a viable chance, too. We would have figured it out. With the rest of the Ark coming down. My mom. Donna would have had a good chance with my mom."

"She had a good chance with you." He face angles down. He is apologizing by not apologizing, just like her.

Clarke nods. "I want to remind you that I will never give in, not stop trying, until there is no hope of survival."

His cheek twitches. "I don't know why I expected any thing less, princess. I'll try not to forget it."

They turn away and leave. Both smiling and standing straighter, but not allowing the other to see.

* * *

Although the weather stays gray most of the day, the hundred party. Monty's Unity Day Juice slick on their lips and Counselor Jaha's speech this afternoon nothing but a gleaming star in the sky amongst millions. Clarke sits in the drop ship peeling away the worst of Miller's burnt skin. Octavia found him wrist deep in coals of Donna's pyre, digging for something. He sways as he sits in front of Clarke, as drunk as any of the people around the campfires outside croaking out _Semi-Charmed Life_ from some twentieth century band. Since they moved the radio outside for the Unity Day speech, the drop ship is an echoing tomb. If an acorn drops and rolls down the side, it's the rolling thunder of another hurricane. And as Octavia paces, Clarke grits her teeth and keeps her hands steady as she uses tweezers to pry chunks of charcoal from cracking skin.

"Why am I still here again?" she snaps, arms braced against her body. It's from impatience, not cold. The inside of her jacket has been reinforced with a layer of animal skin. Bellamy made sure of that.

Clarke grabs a canister of moonshine and says, "Hold his other arm," before pouring the alcohol over the oozing skin. Octavia catches Miller's hand before he hits Clarke. She recalls the different type of reflexes and chalks up his reaction to that, instead of the darker thought that maybe he actually wants to hit her (_Does he think I killed her, too? _she thinks and remembers Lucus' jab and how his hands looked with dirt caked under and around his fingernails.)

"Octavia." She begins working on Miller's other hand. Less of its surface is charred because it's his dominant hand with thicker calluses to protect the pinker skin. "I wanted—"

"Don't you lecture me, too. I had a mom Clarke; I don't need another one."

Clarke's hand slips, and she jabs too deep into Miller's skin with the tweezers. He whimpers and starts crying again, but she doesn't think its because of the pain from his physical wounds.

Octavia's hands rest on Miller's forearm, squeezing to reassure him and whispers, "It's okay. We'll take care of you."

The seaweed smells like the river but looks and feels like raw meat. Something bitter lodges itself in Clarke's throat and she wraps his hands like mittens. Octavia takes over from there, leading the grief-drunk Miller to a padded corner of the drop ship. She guides him to lean against the wall, his hands resting on his chest. She readjusts his jacket and pants so that he would keep warm and draws up a bright orange blanket to his hands. His eyes are closed. He is snoring by the time she gets up from her crouch.

Her gaze is as intense as her brother's. "What?" she barks.

It's then Clarke realizes it was _her_ that was starring. She doesn't try to cover it up or make excuses.

"When Donna first came to me, I thought it would have been better if she went to you, instead." She sterilizes the tweezers with moonshine before placing them with her other tools—one of the few things the Ark had the forethought to include. "You're good at knowing how to comfort a person. I don't know how to do that." They look at each other across a floor covered in crushed leaves and pebbles. Octavia face smooths into flat cheeks, straight lips, bland eyes.

"Could you?" Clarke holds up the medical kit and gestures toward the shelfing with bundles of drying the herbs, roots, seaweed, and torn cloth.

She steps forward, hesitates, and then snatches up the kit to shove it with the rest of the medical supplies.

"Oh, and there's a book under the Queen Anne's Lace, if you wouldn't mind." Clarke wipes her hands on her pants and stands, fiddling with her dinner. A cup of Unity Day Juice is full on the exam table. Sterling made her take it with her after their drinking game got interrupted. It smells too much like Wells when they were trapped in the abandoned bus with the acid storm above them, and it tastes too much like Finn's lips when they first kissed in the bunker. She pushes it the side, knowing it would make a good sterilizer if anything.

She keeps her back turned from Octavia, reaching out for the log she's written on each of the hundred. It's an expansion of the original census collected along with any outstanding injuries that occurred while on earth, time of death, or the like. (A separate compilation of committed crimes is on the third level, hidden under the panther rug). Her mother keeps rigorous digital files of every resident on the Ark and while as her daughter, Clarke can't stand her mother, she can respect the professional manner of Dr. Abby and adopt some of her applicable practices. Clarke scribbles notes on Miller's condition, sighs, and turns around. Octavia is gone and so is the grounder's journal. The singing of Friday nights and dancing on table tops floods into the drop ship. Clarke stands in front of the plastic tarp, separating her from them, and doesn't move. The flickering of firelight wavers across her face.

Going through the grounder's drawings was like torturing him all over again. But like the torture, this needed to be done too. Clarke copied only pertinent information and avoided lingering too long on the portraits of Octavia. Drawing taxed her. It never did before. Even when enclosed by four walls for months with little social contact. She chalks it up to a sore back and going to sleep wondering if she even wants to wake up the next day. (Earth demands everything from her and so she gives it everything. But how soon will she have nothing left to give?)

* * *

She doesn't sleep that night because for as many enthralled, horny, drunk teenagers there are romping around outside, there are those curled in tight balls, begging for mommy. The first weeper comes in around one-thirty according to her dad's watch. The girl, Vanessa, clings to Clarke's shirt, stretching the fabric as she pulls them both to the ground. Before Clarke can even figure out how to comfort the tall, black girl, she's asleep, snoring. Clarke is grateful.

The next weeper is Monty. His black hair and black eyes keep asking questions that she doesn't have the answers to. As she hugs him, awkward and unsure of where she should put her hands, he whispers, "Jasper has always been there. What if he's not anymore one day?"

She distracts herself from that narrow and dark thought process of "what ifs" by running through the different materials on the medical shelves. He doesn't fall asleep as easily as Vanessa. Nori is next except he alternates between terrifying laughter that is too sharp for a place made of metal. When he starts crying, Clarke wishes he would go back to laughing. But she's no Octavia, so she does what she can by giving him a little food to help settle his stomach and hope that he doesn't throw it all back up.

Bellamy shoves Quinn in as she's trying to bring Monty down from his hysterical ranting about _needing_ to give the Earth a hug. ("Because, you know," he says. "Maybe she won't be angry at us anymore.") Clarke takes stock of Quinn's busted lip and the way Bellamy doesn't let go his shoulder, fingers digging into his coat.

"What did he do?" she says over Monty's murmuring.

"Oh, you know, flirting." Bellamy's smile shows too many teeth.

Monty's hugging her now, telling her everything will be alright. "Can you tie him up or something?"

"My pleasure." He forces Quinn against the drop ship ladder and uses the seat belts to bind together his hands high on the ladder rungs so that he will have to stay standing, even when sleeping.

It's Bellamy who finally gets Monty to lay down, curled under the operation table. Clarke readjusts her stretched out shirt as they sit, side by side, on a cot, both focused on the tarp covering the entrance to the drop ship.

"You gave Octavia the grounder's notebook." He checks the safety on the gun before putting it down on the ground, freeing his hands. They're clean.

She picks at the dirt under her nails. She doesn't want to be like Lucus. "Yes."

"How's Miller?" He glances over at his second-in-command.

"The burns won't be a problem." A wind kicks up the tarp, the ends of it snapping in the air until the gust dies down again. "I'm worried he might check-out."

"He just needs to grieve," Bellamy defends, shifting away from Clarke. He's uncomfortable thinking about suicide so she let's it go, and he changes the subject. "And Vanessa?"

"She's fine. She'll probably deny any of this happening after she wakes up."

She begins cleaning the other hand, but gets sidetracked as Bellamy runs his thumb over his lips, thinking. "In a twisted way, I got lucky." She doesn't try to fill the silence; he is talking to her because who else can they go to? "Vanessa's not pregnant because the birth control from the Ark hadn't worn out yet when we had sex. Roma's dead. And Vik turns out to be infertile." He scoffs. "Hell, we've _all_ been riding on luck this whole time, haven't we princess?"

Clarke thinks about how soft the blankets were in the bunker where Finn and she had sex. Cool sheets that were probably never used now forever stained. The candles filling the safe house made even the shadows soothing whispers. Nothing like the penetrating blue lights of the Ark. "We can't rely on luck, anymore."

"We can't afford to," he finishes for her.

She thinks about Donna's body as she prepared it for the pyre. It was automatic for her to begin accounting for the damage, to note lacerations, and look for cause of death. Monroe said she was cold-hearted bitch for talking like that with the body still warm. Clarke bows her head into her hands; they're not clean. It will take more than just picking at the fingernails to wash all the dirt off.

"What are we doing?" The black leather on her boots has worn into gray. She wiggles her toes and feels the hole in her socks.

"What we can," he answers.

"Will that be enough?"

His knee touches hers and he says. "It will have to be."

* * *

Finn finds them like that, both staring at the floor with drunken snores and sobs echoing in the drop ship. He hands twitch, and he keeps shifting from side to side.

"What is it?" Clarke says.

Bellamy stands, gun in his hands. Finn chews on his cheek. Like Bellamy, he has his own tells as to when he's thinking. "My stitches are have been itchy. Do you mind just giving them a look over?"

"What? You're coming to her with this, now?" Bellamy sneers.

But Bellamy doesn't know that Finn is the type of person who looks you straight in the eye as he lies. But Clarke does. "Yeah, I'll check them out," she says and moves towards the medical shelves, avoiding Monty's legs as they poke out from beneath the surgical table.

She lifts up Finn's shirt and dabs a rag logged with alcohol along the stitches. Some fluid leaks between the sutures. _Normal_, she thinks. _No increased swelling. _She prods around wound, feeling for hardness. _Normal_. She traces some of the more tender looking areas. _He's being too active…but doing what? _She glances at Bellamy. His eyebrows scrunch together. He notices something is off about Finn, too.

She clears her throat and drops his shirt. "It looks good, but don't cover it with anything. It needs to air out. Take it easy, though. The skin is fragile and if you keep pulling at it, you'll cause more damage."

Finn's not listening. He stares at Quinn and asks, "Why are you tied up?"

Bellamy answers for him, "Just a precaution." He maneuvers between Finn and Quinn. "Keeping the peace and all that."

"And all that," Finn mocks. "How can you let him do that, Clarke?" His eyes dart to her cheeks, forehead, ears. It's like he's trying to read her like he reads the forest floor when tracking animals.

"I _asked _him to do that, Finn," she says. She places only one hand on her hip.

"Without probable reason? Just on some whim—"

"You know don't know that." (She wants to add, _You know nothing_. But she won't waste so much effort on him who doesn't try to understand, who doesn't _want_ to understand. "Besides, you know I wouldn't do something like that," she says.

"Do I?"

She hates how he asks her that. How it makes her doubt the decisions she's made. Everything she's done is minimized and dismissed when he angles his body away from her, shakes his head, and leaves.

She listens to Monty's sleep talk about fission reactors until the sun rises. Bellamy doesn't leave the drop ship until she holes herself up on the third floor, empty cases of ammunition around her and the names of those who checked out guns this shift: _Ulric. Del. Monroe. Phillip. _Black on gray, the names perch on the wall like crows in a dead tree.

* * *

**Author**: Thank you, readers, for all the love you've shown me through reviews and favorites and follows. (I hope this helped clear up any confusion as to why Bellamy might have considered Clarke to be Donna's killer, too.) I hope you enjoyed my interpretation Unity Day. For those of you wondering where all the grounders are in this...don't worry. ;)  
For me, reviews are as beautiful as Bellamy's smile.


	4. Chapter Four

**A note: **The episode 'Unity Day' spans two days. Chapter Three covered day one; Chapter Four will cover the events of day two...with a different sort of flare of course.

* * *

**The Person (I could have been)  
Chapter Four**

"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact."  
Arthur Conan Doyle, _The Boscombe Valley Mystery_

* * *

He is trying to teach Fenton, a sixteen year old who was involved in the illegal fighting ring on the Ark, how to skin a rabbit. Bellamy brings the knife down the stomach and then traces tricky areas, feeling the pull of ligaments and tendons as he separates skin from muscle. "You don't want to pierce deeper than this," he instructs. "It gets messy fast if you do."

Fenton nods, but his round face is pale and sweating in the mid-morning humidity. "What if, ya know, they're not dead?"

He's looking at the boy the whole time as he separates meat from skin and says, "They're always dead."

Bellamy side-steps before Fenton throws up. He sighs and waits for the gagging to end. Stopping the apologies before they get too far, he says, "Go to Clarke. She'll get you something to help calm your stomach."

He kicks leaves and dirt over the spot where Fenton's regurgitated breakfast lays. The wind shifts and camp smoke drifts over the few cleaning and checking the animals for diseases over a bloody table. It was salvaged from a personal bunker Clarke found with Raven when they needed parts for the radio. The pale pine top is now stained and blotchy. The table was meant for quiet meals of canned beans and hours spend coloring, but it has been repurposed by the hundred, like the other items: mattresses from the beds cover areas of the med bay; boxes of candles distributed through camp; the couch ending up in a different tent every few days as the one hundred smuggle it out from each others tents. Even the cement filled haven is a mausoleum of family photographs and trash, never to be inhabited.

Ulric guts the skinned rabbit as Bellamy starts on another one, his fingers guiding him more than his eyes. Hunters came back with two deers, nineteen rabbits, and too many squirrels to be worth the trouble of skinning so they roast directly over the fires.

"What?" Ulric glances up at the guard-made-janitor-made-leader. (Those titles are all lies, and Bellamy knows it)

If one thing is for sure, Bellamy doesn't do covert asks what he was thinking: "What got you put away?"

"I killed a woman, my mom, if ya really wanna know." Ulric separates the rabbit's liver from the rest of the gleaming innards and puts it into a pile with the rest of the edible meat that will be charred over the fire.

Bellamy doesn't see Ulric's square face and blond-dreadlocked hair for a moment, but the sweaty face of Aurora after she gave birth to Octavia. "Why?" The question is a reflex, like reaching out for Octavia every time he hears gun fire.

"Cause she raped me." Bellamy stops mid-tear, one half of the rabbit brown and fuzzy and the other half macabre and dripping. Ulric frowns. "You're going to ruin the fur," he says and finishes scraping out the inside of the rib cage. Then, he continues by saying, "You might have shot Jaha, but you don't know shit about taking revenge, do you?"

Bellamy swallows before taking the knife to the rabbit's skin and shaving off the rest. Ulric was right, he ruined the fur, but the skin might be salvaged for other uses. "How old were you?" The back-and-forth motion of the knife hides the shaking of his hands.

Ulric sighs, the type of sigh someone gives when looking up at the sky to try to figure out if it will rain or not today. "Guess ten or something."

Bellamy grunts; his knife catches on a ligament in the throat.

"Jeez, let me do the rest." Ulric reaches over the table to take the limp rabbit away, his hands black and red and steady.

"You're right," Bellamy answers, handing away the botched animal. "But is what you did to your mom revenge or survival?"

One of Ulric's eyebrows dips down while the other curves up. "One in the same, aren't they? Just depends if you lie to yourself before you go to bed or not."

"But which one's the lie?" Bellamy grins like they're talking about which girl out of the one hundred that has the finest ass.

Ulric chuckles without smiling and replies, "Yeah, that's a damn good question."

Rapping his knuckles against the table, Bellamy thanks Ulric before turning towards the drop ship with every intention of updating the crumpled list hiding beneath panther fur on the third level. It will not happen.

* * *

Monroe stands at the top of the ladder, her legs spread and a club tight in her hands. Bellamy eyes her weapon and asks, "What going on?"

She doesn't say anything until the hatch is closed and locked. "We're missing eleven guns."

He grits his teeth. He remembers that he is a leader and asks about the ammunition.

"Only the duds are missing." Clarke sits on top of the plastic chests containing what few rounds they have. Her eyes are closed and the dull lights do nothing to soothe the pallor of her skin. "Good thing we kept the good stuff under lock and key, huh?"

They both know that is not true. The crates have a lock, but the mechanisms are so rusted that it does not do anything. Bellamy tries to think about the people who do not know that, but then focuses on the people who _do_ know that because the list is much shorter. "Some one snuck into Raven tent and stole bullets?" he says. He shifts back on his heels, pissed but begrudgingly impressed. "That guy's got some balls on him, that is for sure."

"Or she trusts them," Monroe points out, the blunted edge of her club dragging on the floor. Her ears seem larger with her head shaved. (When Bellamy asked her why she did it, she said, "Roma braided my hair. No point to having it long if she's not here.")

"Or she's the one that stole them," Clarke says, but holds up a hand to signal to Bellamy she's not done. "Just saying what needs to be said. If we're going to be hunting someone out, gotta make sure it's the right person this time. We have to acknowledge all the scenarios."

"Well, why can't it be her?" Monroe presses. "She's doesn't really belong here. Came here just for her boyfriend, right? She might be trying to get amnesty with the grounders by trading our weapons to them." The air moves only when they breathe. It tastes like it did in the janitors' closets of the Ark: damp rags and empty chemical bottles. Bellamy wants to leave, but crouches and puts one hand down like he is a lineman in a three-point stance in the American football games.

"Raven wouldn't give the grounders just duds. She's smart, remember? Rocket scientist. She'd mix the duds and the working one's together so that she could appease the grounders, but still stay under the radar here at camp," Clarke defends. "It's someone who doesn't know the difference between good and bad gun powder."

Bellamy considers pulling out the list to see if anyone crimes might line up to the recent threats. When he glances at Clarke, she shakes her head. He is not sure if the gesture was meant to mean something else, but he takes the signal and refrains from bringing it out. After all, they would have to explain to Monroe the truth behind Donna's murder and how they have been keeping tabs on the one hundred. The panther fur prickles his fingers as he rubs the rug the wrong direction. No. No one but Clarke and he can know about the list.

He focuses on what they have speculated so far about their thief. "If we go off of the idea that it's someone she trusts, but an idiot when it comes to chemistry…" Bellamy begins.

"Not Monty and Jasper, then," Clarke says, her head nodding and fingers laced together over her knees. "Miller's in the clear, too."

Bellamy looks at her, asking, "Since when does Miller know chemistry?"

Her amused-but-not-happy smile lifts her cheeks up. "That's not what I mean. He's off the list for other reasons."

"Ah." His chin tilts up in acknowledgment. "How's he doing today? He wasn't in the med-bay when I came up."

Monroe answers instead of Clarke. "He seemed better. Less—" She makes circular motion with one of her fingers pointed at her temple, "Loco, ya know. Doing shit around camp, at least."

Clarke shrugs at the description and says he just needs time. Bellamy wants to remind her that they don't _have _time. (Something that hasn't changed between living on the Ark and living on Earth.)

"Besides, he's one of us. Like you two." Monroe yawns and picks at a bug bite on her wrist. Clarke tells her to stop. Monroe doesn't and continues with her line of thought, "So, I guess were looking for someone who isn't one of us and sucks at—"

"What do you mean 'one of us'?" Bellamy interrupts. He pinches the bridge of his nose, massaging the muscles like Clarke told him to do if he feels a headache coming on.

Monroe sharp features slacken. She flounders for a description. "Well, you know. Making a life here. Standing our ground. Not being intimidated by a bunch of freaks in masks."

A sharp intake of breath has him looking up at Clarke as her face settles into the same resigned, tired look of betrayal. Last night, she wore the same mask. Last night…Bellamy says "Finn" the same time she does. She nods and lowers her eyes so that she is looking up at him through her lashes and adds, "And Octavia."

_Maybe this is how she felt when I accused her of killing Donna,_ he thinks the same time he growls, "No." But he really means _yes_ because Octavia would steal guns and bullets to try to make peace.

"Well, ain't that a bitch," Monroe says. "Your own sister."

"Thanks for bringing it to my attention," he sneers, standing up. Between his fingers is blood he missed when washing up from cleaning the rabbit.

Clarke knees pop as she rises too. "So what do we do then? Set a trap to catch them in the act to make sure it's really them?"

"Nah." He smiles down at her, portraying arrogance with the way he keeps his hands on his hips and head tilted back. She frowns in response. She knows him too well and the display does not confuse her the same way it does Monroe who blurts, "What the hell do you mean?"

"We're just gonna ask." Like he said, he doesn't do covert.

* * *

They come back at the same time, appearing from opposite sides of the camp. Finn walks through the gate. Octavia slips between the many gaps still in the wall. They make eye contact and reveal to Bellamy that where ever they were, they were together. When he approaches them from his seat next to a fire, they just began talking about something. They stand too close for it to be causal conversation, though, and Finn seems to eager by calling out a greeting. Bellamy asks them both to come to the drop ship, smiling as he does so. Finn just nods and says he will be there in a second. Octavia frowns and tell him he can't tell her what to do.

"Clarke's the one who suggested it, not me," he says, ignoring the bruise on the underside of her chin. He knows it is from pleasure not pain and that causes him to force his smile wider, fighting against the frown.

"Clarke asked for me?"

He shrugs his shoulders. He still has trouble lying to his sister.

She works her jaw back and forth. "Okay, let me get some food and I'll be right there."

He turns his back before he says anything he might regret (like: "You don't need food, that damn grounder makes sure of it" or "You mean you need to talk to Finn and coordinate a story to keep hiding your involvement"). Breathing in the air helps clear away the dirty words from his mouth and the memory of janitorial closets.

* * *

Bellamy stands outside of the drop ship to ward away anyone from entering. A few approach with minor medical injuries, and he tells them to come back later. Harper, a girl who tries to mimic Monroe and Roma's intricate braids, is the first one to ask what's going on. Bellamy replies that the drop ship just needs cleaned out. "Doctors orders," he adds and the gathering crowd disperses back towards roasting rabbits and half-made weapons. He worries about the day Clarke realizes how much power she holds over these delinquents. Over him. But for now, Octavia and Finn trail towards him. He does not grin this time. Pulling aside the parachute, he gestures them in. Octavia tries to make eye contact with him, but he stares at the hickey until she huffs and pushes past him.

Finn is not the first one to speak. Bellamy bet an hour of guard duty that he would be. "A guy like him gets a kick out of knowing everything," he said while they were rearranging things on the third floor. Clarke agreed, but bet a hour of wall maintenance instead.

Monroe said, "We all can't bet against him, so I guess I'm gunna go with Octavia to make the first move." Monroe smirks from her place against the wall. She just won two hours of free time.

"What's going on?" Octavia asks, arms crossed. She nudges the box at their feet. The checked ammo used to be in there. "What's up with this?"

"It's a gift," Clarke says, hands in the pockets of her jacket. She is enjoying this. Bellamy feels the pull of a smile on his own cheeks. Miller does not try to hide his amusement. His head tilts back and he watches Finn from under the shadow of his black beanie. (It was Clarke who suggested the Miller be in the know. Bellamy sees the wisdom of that.)

"Clarke, what's going on?" Finn does not look anywhere, but her face. His jaw remains slack and his forehead wrinkles.

"Well, we figured that it be easier—nicer—if the grounders got the guns all wrapped up instead of in pieces. They seem like the kind of people who appreciate a thoughtful gesture." Bellamy circles from behind the two thieves to stand next to Clarke. His posture mirrors his sister's.

"Bell, what the hell are you talking about? What's in there, a bomb or something?" Octavia steps back and out of the direct light to create deeper shadows along her neck. He is grateful that the hickey is obscured by the darkness. It makes talking to her easier when she at least appears to look like his sister instead of some stranger he is not sure how to act around.

"Nope. Just the guns. Like promised." He makes a show of gesturing to the weapons leaning next to Monroe. "Except for those four. Insurance, you know."

"So, what are we going to do? Just march through the woods until we find some grounders to hand the guns over to?" Finn says, ridicule and scorn heavy in his voice. Clarke's smile reminds Bellamy of how she looked when she approached him about finding Jasper those first days on Earth: daring him to say the wrong thing.

"Oh. But you and Octavia already know where to meet them. Same place you dropped off the other guns, right?" Her voice is high and sweet. Too sweet.

"Clarke, what are you—"

"Dude, they know," Octavia says, running a hand through her hair. "No point in looking dumb. Just as important to know when to stand up as it is to sit down isn't it?" She looks at her older brother.

Bellamy's smile slips a bit. "'The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter,'" he quotes.

Finn frowns. "What?"

"Winston Churchill." Clarke looks between the sibilings. Monroe yawns. Miller itches at the blisters beneath his bandages. For a few moments, only the shouting of outside can be heard. But they do not have time to try to pass secret messages or decode signals. Survival is ruined by miscommunication. Bellamy learned that the same time he realized Clarke and he really just want the same thing: to make things better here on Earth than they were on the Ark. _Time to get down to business_, he thinks, and gives his partner's arm a nudge with his elbow.

She takes the cue. "Look." Clarke closes her eyes and crosses her arms. "We know that you've been smuggling our guns, probably to the grounders in some attempt to create peace. So we're just here to expedite the process."

"What about ammo?" Finn asks, biting his lip. He must of went by Raven's tent to see if he could sneak some more bullets. Too bad the whole tent was cleared out and everything relocated to the second floor of the drop ship.

"What did you tell the grounders you'd give them?" Bellamy replies instead. Octavia opens the chest, peering in at the dark metal.

"It was agreed that if I got the guns to them, they would stay on their side of the river," Finn recites. He is still looking towards Clarke. She does not acknowledge him. Her body angles towards Bellamy.

"Then you'll give them what we promised. The guns," Millers says, stepping forward. "Nothing more, nothing less."

Octavia snorts. "You think they're stupid or something?"

Clarke shakes her head. "No. They'll take the deal because their _smart_." She glances over at Finn, but his back is turned and his hands are up in the air. "And why in the world would taking a bunch of gun without the ammo be smart?" he says.

"Because if they want peace, they'll see this is how they get it." Bellamy does not like how Finn keeps his back turned.

Snorting, spacewalker goes on to say, "Yeah, or they just come kill us all because we went back on our deal!"

"_Our_ deal?" Clarke snaps. "This is on you."

"Really, well you know what—"

Octavia tells Finn to _shut up_ and continues speaking in a calmer voice. "Ya, you're right."

Monroe relaxes back against the wall. "When's the next drop?" Bellamy asks.

"Tomorrow," his sister replies.

He nods and smiles. "Looks like tomorrow is when the real Unity day will happen, huh?"

"Looks like it," Clarke agrees.

* * *

Bellamy is not surprised when Miller reports later on that day on the argument Clarke and Finn are having. "Looks like it'll come to blow," he adds.

"No, it won't," Bellamy assures, but he must have not believed his own words because fifteen minutes later he gives his rabbit thigh away to Fenton (with a warning not to waste it by throwing up) and meanders through the tents and chatter towards the hushed insults of the couple. He mills between two smaller fires near the argument, trying to remain inconspicuous. Their voices do not rise about the hissing of wet wood, the swaying of tree branches, and the giggling of a couple in one of the tents. Only with the shifting of wind can Bellamy hear what Finn is saying to Clarke. However, words come in disjointed segments and without context. He watches their body movements rather than trying to discern what they saying. He can't see Finn's face because he stands with his back towards the rest of the camp. Clarke's mouth stays open, but Finn does not give her any time to form a reply before blundering on. Finn's hands reach out towards Clarke. She swipes them away and looks down at the space between them. Her mouth closes. The wind rises. Bellamy pulls at the collar of his jacket to bring it further up on his neck.

"Stop keeping secrets," he hears. Clarke walks away, shaking her head. Finn combs his hands through his hair a few times, steps to move in the same direction she did, but Bellamy stands in his way. Finn's eye blow wide in the dark with anger and surprise. Perhaps his looked the same way. He never intended to intervene. (_Liar_, he thinks. _Why else would you have come?_)

Finn tries to leave, but Bellamy shuffles to stay in front of him. "What do you want?" he snaps, neck tight with tension.

Bellamy smirks, enjoying having the upper hand over the ever calm and collected spacewalker. "Don't include my sister in any of your schemes," he says, resting a hand on the axe slung from his hip.

Fin scoffs and leans away, looking for Clarke in the clusters of people surrounding the camp fires. "She wants to make peace. Unlike you."

His voice remains flat and disinterested, however; he is bating Bellamy. He wants to fight, to yell, to shout, to undermine any authority Bellamy has over the one hundred.

"Peace," Bellamy repeats, working his jaw. "How idealistic." He does not give Finn time to respond. He steps right up to him, jackets brushing. Bellamy hates how clean he keeps himself, as if he is above their desperate attempt at survival. He wants to smudge that prick's face in dirt, make him skin the animals he tracks, and tear a few holes in his clothes. Bellamy settles for growling out, "Never negotiate out of fear, spacewalker. You'll lose."

"Speaking from experience, Bellamy?" They shuffle closer together, teeth glinting in the fire light. Finn is not in the mood to back down.

But Bellamy refuses to play into his ploy. His feral grin eases into a smirk. He answers "Yes" (in a voice similar to the one he used when telling Clarke that she _doesn't need to be here_ when the grounder was strung up in the drop ship) and leaves Finn seething in the dark.

* * *

**Author: **Thank you for all your encouragement, favorites, and follows! Each one is precious to me. I would like to re-emphasize this is a SLOW BURN. Because as much as I ship them, I leader-ship Bellamy and Clarke so hard that keeping them as a cohesive unit in the decision making process is so important to me! But everything will be really 'up in flames' in the next chapter. ;)

Also, I didn't add the scene where the Ark's drop ship crashes on Earth _on purpose._ We're getting there, don't worry. Please continue to drop comments and let me know what you're thinking about the story, improvements, or, ya know, whatever.


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